PATHLESS TRAVELS

2019-09-162019-09-22

Crying need for textbooks on martial law abuses

A One News story (https://onenews.ph/martial-law-to-be-taught-as-new-subject-at-up) reported that starting “next semester, students at the University of the Philippines Diliman may enroll in a subject that will tackle language, literature, and culture under the martial law.”

2019-03-192019-03-30

Bamboo shoots

Poems like this are like a bamboo grove, planted and nurtured by half-forgotten old folk, relentlessly tossed by the wind and rain, their foliage shed in the worst seasons of drought. But hopefully they’ll endure, for children to discover the ancient nooks and crannies where they will play and build their own dreams.

BAMBOO SHOOTS

Many years have carved these slopes.
It was around this time in March when
North Wind tarried on, defying summer thirst,
and a thousand shoots of green rejoiced.
They’d passed the test, and cried for joy, and raced uphill.
And we, who nurtured them, were about to shout
our wildest greetings when the thought struck us: Continue reading “Bamboo shoots”

2018-05-072018-10-08

How I transcended my frat leanings

When Marcos declared martial law in September 1972, I was a student in UP Diliman taking up B.S. Chemical Engineering. When UP classes reopened around October or November (after a few weeks’ suspension due to the initial uncertainties of martial law), I decided to also go back to my studies while at the same time doing clandestine work with other comrades inside the university as underground ND activists. All my subjects as a freshman were still limited to the general arts and sciences at the Palma Hall (the famous “AS”). And that’s where this story about my short dalliance with frats is supposed to begin. Continue reading “How I transcended my frat leanings”